It happens. I woke up this morning and knew today was going to be bad. You know how when you go outside, you just know it’s going to rain. You can sense it. In the air, or maybe it’s like a sixth sense. You just know something bad is going to happen. You don’t know what, or when, but something bad is going to go down.

I won’t bore you with the details, but my sixth sense was right on the money today. It was a bad day. All I could think was “I wish I was at home, curled up in a ball at the foot of my bed, crying feeling so sorry for myself”. Of course, if I had been at home, I wouldn’t have been doing those things. I’m a little melodramatic if you hadn’t noticed that yet.

Maybe my day wasn’t all that bad, I just had such a great day yesterday that inevitably today was going to look a little dull. But who cares about the reasons? This blog is about the remedies. What do you do to make a bad day good again?

1. The most important thing on a bad day, for me, is the addition of a DVD. Not just any DVD. Inglourious Basterds is the preference, though I have settled for Jurassic Park in the past. Point is, this DVD has to make the day so much better, and really it’s a job for Hans Landa. But Alan Grant makes a good case too.

2. Ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream. I explained to a friend last week that ice cream is my comfort food. She didn’t get it. She couldn’t understand how something so cold could offer comfort. Ben & Jerry’s offer so much comfort in a pint-sized package, it’s unreal. There’s a reason my tiny freezer holds at least 3 different flavours of ice cream at any time.

3. Wine. Now I am in no way saying that alcohol is the answer to all of life’s problems. Not at all. But it does help me relax, it means I know I will not be doing anything serious (e.g. replying to emails, applying for jobs, going out etc) once I’ve had a glass and it does put things in perspective a little bit. But I’m not condoning alcohol as a bad day fixer. It really goes best with point number 1. (Not so much with point number 2… wine OR ice cream. Not wine AND ice cream.)

4. Really good songs. I was in the car driving home from a meeting this evening and I didn’t know what I was in the mood to listen to. So I put the radio on instead of Spotify. Paramore – Still Into You was playing, so I turned it up loud and sang along at the top of my voice. Then Tom Jones came on and I could see where this was going…

5. Crying. Yeah, crying actually helps. Because once you’ve done it, you’ve got it out of your system and you can get on with one, or a combination of the above.

6. Switching off your phone and closing Facebook…. HAHAHA yeah right! I’m never out of reach as far as contacting me goes, even when I’m feeling low. But I might just choose to ignore you. But if you want to make me feel better, tell me a crappy joke. (think nacho jokes, and you get my humour…)

All the above are surefire ways to at least put a smile on my face for a second when I’m have a rubbish day, but what do you do? When you’ve had a lousy day, what turns your day around for you?

Writing this blog, I was singing this in my head. Enjoy!